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Tag Archives: Nadab

Your Name is Aaron

15 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by Ron Thomas in Central Ohio Messenger

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aaron, Abihu, Nadab, presumption, worship

Your name is Aaron. You have been chosen by the Lord to lead the people of Israel in worship to the Lord. You know your responsibility will be great, but you don’t really know how great it will be. You can’t help but to be impressed with your younger brother Moses, for it was the Lord who chose Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt, but you were fortunate to be by him to help and speak for him. Already to this point, you know the Lord.

You were there when the two of you presented yourselves before the king; you were there when you both were reprimanded by the people because the burdened became much heavier for them; you were there when Egypt’s king called Moses before him more than once seeking relief; you were there when Pharaoh sent you and the nation out of NE Africa with haste. You saw all of this, but more than having seen it, you experienced it. Now, the Lord choose you to lead His people. Your name is Aaron.

Through Moses, the Almighty tasked you to head up his priestly family. Moses was of the same ancestry as you, but it was you He chose. Now it begins to settle on you just how great a position of responsibility you have.

Moses calls you and your two sons, Nadab and Abihu, to be set apart for the Lord’s special work. As you look at your two sons, you are a proud father, but the significance of your role is yet before you. Animals are killed on the behalf of you three, and there is much symbolism administered as you three are set apart for a most important work. You are separated from the people at large and from your family for many days. Now it really begins to settle in on you just how important this work is. It begins to settle in, but it has not quite arrived at the point where it will settle in.

Not only are you given special clothing and set aside for a special work with much symbolism, but now you are presenting to the Lord only those things He wants done. By this time, you have come to honor, respect, revere and fear the Lord’s name and power. You are a changed man. Your two sons, you hope, have been changed as you have been. They experienced the same as you; perhaps their experience was not quite the same, but nearly so. Surely, as with your response, theirs is similar.

Now, you come to a part of the Divine service wherein an offering of incense to the Lord is to occur. You, with much devotion and respect, fulfill your responsibilities to this point; now it’s time for your sons to do the same. Before you know it, from heaven came fire and consumed them! Their lives are gone! Your mind is racing, wondering what just happened, and why it happened. Then you hear from Moses and begin to understand what happened. “Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified” (Leviticus 10:3).

What in the world were Nadab and Abihu thinking that they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord? Some have suggested it was because of alcohol, for the Lord gives guidance concerning that in Leviticus 10. This may be exactly the problem, but I am inclined to think it was simply willful disobedience on their part to the Lord’s expressed way; they were thoughtless and careless. “Surely, the Lord will not be upset with a slight change in the offering of this incense! What difference does it make, anyway?”

Your name is Aaron. While you never met Jeremiah, you have come to learn by experience that which he wrote nearly a thousand years later, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, KJV). You have learned that the Lord knows your heart and the heart of every one of His created beings. LESSON: Never trifle with the Lord and His way, for one can be sure sin will find them out (Numbers 32:23). RT

 

Ex-Church of Christ (6)

14 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by Ron Thomas in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Abihu, ex-church of Christ, Leviticus, Nadab, obedience, presumption, strange fire, worship

Continuing my evaluation of the following website (http://ex-churchofchrist.com/unbiblicalCoC.htm), it is clear the trend in being against has more to do with “I want to believe….” than it does any biblical exegesis. Below is another illustration of this. 

An unbiblical doctrine, we are told, would be the following point:  

Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10) are an example of how we will be punished for wrong worship.

See here  and here for examples of this teaching.

Nadab and Abihu were instructed to take coals of fire from the altar to burn incense before God. They took coals from a different fire. The symbolism is clear: The altar represents Jesus’ sacrifice (Hebrews 13:10-12) and incense represents prayer (Rev. 5:8). The symbolism of this passage only teaches that our prayers are unacceptable to God unless we go through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It is a teaching in humility. It is not our own obedience that is acceptable to God, but Christ’s sacrifice and Christ’s obedience through which we find access to God. This passage is actually comforting when we realize that our own efforts are not what put us in a right relationship with God, but it is what God has done for us, and our simple acceptance of that fact, that brings us to God.

RT – This is poor exegesis; in fact, it is eisegesis! This man does not allow the text to teach us anything except for what he calls its symbolic intention (in a New Testament context). Instead, he inserts what he wants us to understand and then passes it off as authoritative. The “symbolism is clear”? Is there something in the text to teach this is only a figurative matter? Is there something in the New Testament that teaches us this is only to be understood as a figurative matter? One might reply, “He did not say it was only symbolic!” Really? Perhaps, I misunderstood his words then. “The symbolism of this passage only teaches…” If the New Testament did not assign any symbolism to it, then only the presumptive ones do so. Nadab and Abihu did not understand it any exclusive symbolic way; they felt the literal force of the Lord’s wrath. From this, if one is smart (cf. Romans 15:4), we can learn much.

First, when the Lord prescribes something to be done in worship (or in any other context), then that which was prescribed is to be done. Second, for those who do not obey in His prescribed way, we understand how the Lord will respond (or potentially so). Commenting on 1 Peter 1:17, Peter Davids said, “It reminds his readers that it is not their persecutors who need to be feared, but God, who is not to be trifled with nor presumed upon, for his judgment is ultimate” (Peter Davids, New International Commentary New Testament on 1 Peter, p. 71, underscoring added by RT). Third, coupling this with Romans 15:4, those in a New Testament context are to apply the principle.

Moreover, what does he mean by his symbolism when he says we must “goes through the sacrifice of Jesus”? Does he mean we must offer our prayers to the Father “by the authority” of Jesus? I am unable to tell if that is what he means. If he does mean that, then why not understand this idea of going by the authority of Jesus as just a matter of symbolism, and not anything more? Again, he made a plainly false statement when he said “it is not our obedience that is acceptable to God, but Christ’s sacrifice…” Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, never thought of obedience as unimportant. This opinion of our web-article is not a New Testament teaching, but a personal theology of man. Paul wrote, “…and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, (Romans 1:4-6, ESV). Note the following things from this passage one learns. 1) the preaching of Jesus and His resurrection was according to the Holy Spirit, 2) this preaching was to bring about obedience from a person who, 3) called upon the Lord. Vincent Taylor wrote years ago, “Unto marks the object of the grace and apostleship: in order to bring about. Obedience of faith is the obedience which characterizes and proceeds from faith” (VWS, on Romans 1:5, E-sword). Peter wrote, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1:22-23, ESV). Thus, to say that it is not our obedience that is acceptable to God is false at worse and misleading at best.

Finally, with regard to Leviticus 10, one learns the Lord (through Moses) instructed the High Priest and his associates the importance of hearing and obeying the His express will (10:10-11). The two associate priests offered “strange fire” (Exodus 30:9; unauthorized fire – ESV; from where they retrieved that “fire” is unstated). The point is, they were to offer only that which the Lord authorized; to offer what they did was presumptuous. There is nothing exclusively symbolic about it associated with prayer through Jesus; in fact, there is nothing at all associated with prayer and Jesus.

Is there an application of the principle in the New Testament? Not according to our author (except in a symbolic way). There is, however, from the vantage point of Paul, not only as he stated it in Romans 15:4, but also as he stated it in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13.

 

The Expression of a Holy Life

05 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by Ron Thomas in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abihu, holiness, Nadab, worship

The sin of Nadab and Abihu is one of those accounts in Scripture that is reasonably well known. It is well known because to the Lord these two men (priests) offered to the Holy One of Israel something that was not authorized by Him. Consequently, the Lord expressed His displeasure by consuming them rather than the offering of the sacrifice as originally designed (Leviticus 9:18-10:2). What is sometimes overlooked in this is the exhortation by the Lord to Israel is that for those who come before the Lord (that is, they come before Him to worship, especially those who are leading), they are to live an expression of a holy life (Leviticus 10:3). The application of this to our day is not to be overlooked. When we stand before the Lord offering to Him our worship, are we living the holy life demanded by the Lord (1 Peter 1:13-16)? If not, then though we are alive physically, it is certainly the case the Lord’s fire will consume us spiritually; it is just waiting to be applied!

A Serious Matter

11 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by Ron Thomas in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abihu, Nadab, profane, worship

The occasion surrounding the Lord’s judgment on Nadab and Abihu is one of serious importance. From it we learn that God’s servants much approach Him in holiness. It has been common for the Jewish rabbis to interpret the sin of the brothers to be directly connected to alcohol, but the Lord does not say this. What we do learn from the Lord is that which they offered was profane, or unauthorized (Leviticus 10:1). Gordon Wenham wrote in regards to this situation, “…the closer a man is to God, the more attention he must pay to holiness and the glory of God” (Leviticus, p. 156). It’s a serious matter, and to him who is given much, much is expected.

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